I love the evolved Jewish commitment, that of tikkun olam, which I understand has two respects: The intimate internal commitment of personal depth, sanctity, integrity, balanced mindfulness, humility before/in relation to God The external commitment to healing of the world, of social relationships, to help others in their need, “to love thy neighbor as thyself” [...]
Archive for the ‘Jewish reflection’ Category
Commitment – The Fruit of Prayer
Posted in Ethics, Jewish reflection on December 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Prayer
Posted in Ethics, Jewish reflection, Spirituality on December 9, 2010 | 4 Comments »
I’ve started praying regularly, Jewish prayer, three times per day per rabbinic instruction and guidance. Its changed me, for the good. It gives scope to my expansive and imaginative side, and at the same time reinforces the sober promise of living well and kindly and confidently in the actual world.
Chaos Theory in Ecology – Flying in a walking world
Posted in Ethics, Israel/Palestine on August 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Chaos theory is a new area of math study that among other things attempts to navigate the areas where systems of logic conflict with one another. The examples that I’ve been exposed to are physical, like an element reaching the boundary of a phase change, say like ice melting into water. The phase change itself represents [...]
Exploring Racism – Political
Posted in Ethics, Israel/Palestine, Jewish reflection on July 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
There is an obvious reciprocal connection between racism that expresses in the form of collective attitudes, prejudices, and individuals. Individuals derive what “everybody” knows from their neighbors, and neighbors derive “what everybody knows” from us. We individually can affect the tenor of prejudicial attitudes, even if only incrementally. The political signficance occurs when racism changes from [...]
Exploration into Racism – Social
Posted in Ethics, Israel/Palestine, Jewish reflection on July 12, 2010 | 2 Comments »
There are three aspects to racism. 1. Individual – How do I personally interact with individuals from different races and cultures? My personal attitudes are my personal responsibility. I express them. The consequences result from my own actions. 2. Social – What am I a part of? How do collective attitudes affect the experience of [...]
Exploration into Racism
Posted in Ethics, Jewish reflection, Spirituality on July 11, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I’ve been invited to explore racism. The stimulus for the inquiry was a discussion on another blog, Mondoweiss, by an old friend (I hope he is still), Philip Weiss, who has opened up a similar inquiry there. I want to take this time to first explore what racism is, how it plays in my inter-personal [...]
Gaza – What is Going On?
Posted in Israel/Palestine, Jewish reflection on June 1, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The unfolding of events in Gaza were close to my worst fears associated with civil disobedience. Nothing went right. Every party reported on, acted in ways that were negligent, inciting, futile. Specifically, 1. Israel allowed the blockade to both occur at all, and to occur over an extended period (in spite of agreements during the 2008 [...]
Thoughts on Being Jewish
Posted in Ethics, Jewish reflection on January 24, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In my discussions with activists and orthodox religious Jews, its become clear to me that there are two components of “being Jewish”. One is the association of being part of a community, a nation, that survived and nurtured in diaspora. The key motivations that springs from that association is preservation. The second theme springs from [...]
Labor Zionism – Kibbutz and Class Struggle
Posted in Israel/Palestine on September 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Israel is different now than when it was founded. And, not so different. Many of the Jewish immigrants to then Palestine were young lower middle class idealists from Russia. They were influenced by the initial Russian social uprising in 1905, followed by pogroms blaming the uprising on Jews, as a large proportion of the uprising leaders [...]
1900 – 1930 Israel/Palestine Dreams and dreams
Posted in Israel/Palestine on September 29, 2009 | 3 Comments »
The setting of Jewish European experience in the early 20th century was one of remaining suppression and prejudice if not consistently persecution in Western Europe, and intense persecution and organized mob violence against Jews in Eastern Europe. Large numbers emigrated from Eastern Europe to the United States primarily, but also to England, Australia, Canada, South [...]
